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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
Our Midweek Lenten Vespers services this year have called us to lift up our eyes to the Bible’s mountains, and so we so far have considered the Mountains of Ararat, Mount Zion (including Mount Moriah, Calvary, Golgotha, and Jerusalem), Mount Sinai (also called Mount Horeb), and Mount Carmel. Continuing in the order of their major Biblical narratives, tonight we consider the Mount of Olives, realizing, as we have each week, our sinfulness, the forgiveness that God freely gives us for the sake of Jesus’s death on the cross, and how God gives us that forgiveness.
Named for its extensive olive groves, the Mount of Olives is a part of the main ridge of mountains that runs north and south through the central and southern part of what we think of as the Holy Land, and the Mount of Olives itself has three summits, with the highest summit nearly 3‑thousand feet above sea level, a few hundred feet higher than the summit of nearby Mount Zion, across the Kidron Valley to the west (Barrois, TIDotB, 3:597). Like all of the mountains, the Mount of Olives presumably was created by God either in the beginning, on the third day, when the waters under the heavens were gathered together into one place and the dry land appeared (Genesis 1:9; confer Keil-Delitzch, ad loc Psalm 46:2-4, p.94), or at the time of the flood, when all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened (Genesis 7:11). The Mount of Olives is first mentioned by name when the Divinely‑inspired author of 2 Samuel tells of King David’s fleeing his capital city of Jerusalem over the Mount of Olives, because of King David’s son Absalom’s revolt (2 Samuel 15:30, confer Barrois, TIDotB, 3:597).
Tonight’s Readings consist of the only other Old Testament mention of the Mount of Olives by name and two of the New Testament mentions of the Mount of Olives by name. In the First Reading, God through the prophet Zechariah spoke of what seems to be a giant anthropomorphisized Lord’s feet standing on the Mount of Olives (confer TLSB, ad loc Zechariah 14:4, p.1541) and so of the Mount of Olives being split in two (confer Barrois, TIDotB, 3:597). As we heard read, the split is to run from east to west across the Mount of Olives, so that one half moves north‑ward and the other half moves south‑ward, but the Hebrew and other translations literally say the split is to run from east notably to the sea (confer Brenton, 1125), presumably the Mediterranean Sea, which is to the west (confer Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 21:21, III:153). The mention of any sea in describing the splitting of the Mount of Olives arguably connects water with the removal or leveling of all of the other mountains so that ultimately Mount Zion with its new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from God, is elevated, the highest of the mountains, as we discussed three weeks ago (confer Revelation 21:1‑22:5; Waltke, TWOT, I:225, with reference to Isaiah 2:2-3; Micah 4:1-2; Talmon, TDOT, III:446-447; and Foerster, TDNT, V:483). Somewhat echoing tonight’s First Reading’s prophecy through Zechariah (Barrois, TIDotB, 3:598), in tonight’s Second Reading, days before His crucifixion and resurrection, the Lord Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives and taught His disciples, taught them both about the destruction of Jerusalem with its Temple and about the end of the age with His coming in glory (confer Mark 13:1-37; Luke 21:5-36). And, in tonight’s Third Reading, the day of His ascension, Jesus, on the Mount of Olives, again was—and this time His angels also were—teaching His disciples about His coming in glory (confer Luke 24:50). The Mount of Olives clearly is associated with temporal and eternal judgment, especially on the earthly Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives clearly is also associated with the coming of the Lord on the Last Day, though in some ways we might agree with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther, who, as a brother pastor who adapted our midweek emphasis pointed out to me, in his 15‑27 commentary on Zechariah chapter 14, said that he gave up and did not know what the prophet was taking about, but Luther nevertheless offered an explanation (Luther, ad loc Zechariah 14:1-2, AE 20:337).
Whatever the specific sins were of the people of the earthly Jerusalem in Zechariah’s day, and whatever the specific sins were of the people of the earthly Jerusalem in our Lord’s day, we should not think of ourselves as any better or any worse than them. Since the fall, all people are equally sinful by nature. And, our sinful nature leads us to commit countless and sometimes unspeakable specific actual sins of thought, word, and deed. We sin against one another, but more so we sin against God. You know your specific sins against your neighbors and against God better than I know them, and God knows your specific sins against your neighbors and against Him best of all. For our sinful nature and for all of our actual sin, we deserve temporal and eternal punishment. But, out of God’s great love and mercy, God calls and so enables us to repent: to turn in sorrow from our sin, to trust Him to forgive our sin, and at least to want to stop sinning. When we so repent, then God forgives us. God forgives our sinful nature and all of our actual sin, whatever our actual sin might be. Notably, God’s calling and enabling people to repent through the words and work of John the Baptizer was described in terms of a removal or leveling of physical obstacles: valleys lifted up or filled and mountains and hills made low (for example, Luke 3:5, with reference to Isaiah 40:4; confer Foerster TDNT, V:481; see also 486 with reference to Revelation 16:20).
The Lord carries out the judgment that tonight’s Readings described against those who do not repent, but, at the same time, the Lord is fighting for and delivering those who do repent. As the prophet Ezekiel tells it, the mountains of Israel are the site of the Lord’s battle against Gog, of the land of Magog, which battle both causes His creatures, including the fish of the sea, to quake at His presence, and causes presumably the other mountains to be thrown down, but the Lord defeats His enemies and on His mountain prepares for His people a sacrificial feast of flesh and blood (Ezekiel 38:1-39:29, especially 38:8, 20-21; 39:4, 17; confer Isaiah 25:6-12). In such prophecies, the Lord is thought to be standing on the Mount of Olives even when the Mount of Olives is not named, as in prophecy like that of Joel (Joel 3:1-17, see Talmon, TDOT, III:446). In the First Reading, where the Mount of Olives is named, its splitting creates a valley through which God’s people escape the judgment that He brings on Jerusalem, as King David once escaped his son Absalom’s revolt, and as God graciously gives us a way through faith in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be delivered from the judgment that we otherwise deserve.
The Mount of Olives was important in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, not only as we heard in tonight’s Second and Third Readings, but also in other passages, especially those leading up to His death on the cross for your sins and for my sins. On Palm Sunday, Jesus came from the Mount of Olives, from villages such as Bethany—where His friends Martha, Mary, and Lazarus lived (John 11:1; 12:1-3; confer Luke 10:38-39)—and Bethphage (Barrois, TIDotB, 3:597-598) in order to enter Jerusalem (for example, Luke 19:29-40). In the days following, Jesus taught in Jerusalem, but He spent the nights on the Mount of Olives (Luke 21:37; John 8:1‑2). On the night when He was betrayed, after instituting the Holy Supper, Jesus went out to the Mount of Olive’s Garden of Gethsemane (John 18:2; Luke 22:39-46), where He prayed and then was arrested. And, after His crucifixion and resurrection, as we heard, from the Mount of Olives, Jesus ascended into heaven, where He sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and from where He will come to judge the living and the dead. We who repent do not have to fear that judgment, however. Everything that Jesus did and does He did and does for us. In Christ we are righteous before God, and we might even say that by faith in Him on the Last Day we will tell mountains like the Mount of Olives to be taken up and thrown into the sea, and it will happen (Matthew 21:21; Mark 11:23; confer/compare Revelation 8:8 and Davies and Allison, ad loc Matthew 21:21, III:153).
The Talmud, described as the central text of rabbinic Judaism, reports that on the Mount of Olives was conducted the rite of burning a red heifer to ashes for use in the water of cleansing (Barrois, TIDotB, 3:597, with reference to Numbers 19:1-10). We should think of Holy Baptism, where water and the word cleanse us from sin. The Baptismal Font for us is the fountain of the water of life, life-giving water that buries us with Christ so that we can also be raised with Him. When specific sins trouble us who are baptized, we privately confess them to our pastors for the sake of individual Holy Absolution, forgiveness from the pastor as from God Himself. And, then we are admitted to the Holy Supper, the sacrificial feast of Jesus’s Body and Blood, in, with, and under the forms of bread and wine. So, from this Altar, at this Rail, we receive the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. All the blessings of Mount Zion are ours as a possession here and now, if not yet as a full experience as they will be on the Last Day with the resurrection of the body.
The picture of the Mount of Olives on the front of tonight’s service outline shows that many of the mountain’s olive groves have long been replaced by Jewish cemeteries. Reportedly, for some 3‑thousand years the western slopes of the Mount of Olives have been home to Jewish cemeteries that now hold some 150‑thousand graves. Tonight’s First Reading supposedly is behind the Jews’ belief that the Messiah will return on the Mount of Olives and that the resurrection of the dead will begin there. (Wikipedia; compare Foerster TDNT, V:484 with n.102.) We Christians know from our Lord’s own teaching both that we heard in the Second Reading that His return will be visible in all places at once and that the resurrection of all the dead likewise will be in all places at once. And, as Jesus prophesied of false christs and false prophets, so, a few years before Jerusalem and the Temple’s destruction by the Romans, a Jewish prophetic figure known as “the Egyptian” and his followers gathered on the Mount of Olives preparing to invade the city, as if the Lord would let them in (Wikipedia). Yet, as we heard our Lord say in the Second Reading, we can tell the season but not the day or the hour.
We have lifted up our eyes to the Bible’s mountains: the Mountains of Ararat, Mount Zion, Mount Sinai, Mount Carmel, and now also the Mount of Olives. We have realized our sinfulness, the forgiveness that God freely gives us for Jesus’s sake, and how God gives us that forgiveness. In one way or another, consideration of each mountain has led us to God’s judgment but also His future restoration (Talmon, TDOT, III:446). As we sang in tonight’s Psalm (Psalm 46:1-11; antiphon v.12), we will not fear, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, for the Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +